Another post about the endgame got me thinking about this. Challenging content is fun content. The complex trials and TFs were more fun than the really easy street sweeping (not that street sweeping is bad, just not as interesting or challenging). Not ALL content should a pain in the axe puzzle to have to figure out, but some content should. IMHO, some of the best swag should probably come from the hardest content. As a way of making people want to do more trials, etc, CoH had badges for doing the TF differently, or better, or in a more challenging way. What if those types of badges also gave you a randomized gear drop of some kind?
Just a thought. iTrials had this to some extent (I think you got some kind of Merits when you got a particular badge in an iTrial, right?).
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I always thought something should happen if you fail the trials. Striga Isle is a prime example, why wouldn't the giant robot spawn in the city if you Failed to stop it's activation. Of course some people would fail just to get the chance to fight the robot (Nothing wrong with that!).
Being able to run trials different ways would expand the game play. A badge for playing sneaky and not argoing the patrols would be one option.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
I really like the idea of an interesting consequence for failure; I'd like to see this for some regular content as well, not just TFs. I think the devs hinted at this somewhere: how failure can be a very interesting part of a story, and that they were looking into incorporating it into missions somehow.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Such failure scenarios are relatively easy to arrange for repeatable group content such as instances, since they can be played through until the player sees the desired result. (Most or all flashpoints in SWTOR had conversations which involved key Light Side / Dark Side choices that affected how the story played out, to greater or lesser extent.) In single player content, which generally isn't intended to be repeated, this could be difficult. A number of factors beyond the player's control, from a lag spike to a disconnection, could result in an undesired failure. This assumes that the failure revolves about a fight or the like, rather than player being asked to choose whether they want to take the success path or the failure path.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Negative Possibility Space for badges https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnxVOUSzX4A
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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I always thought the reactor should have blown up if you failed the reactor trial. Big mushroom cloud visible in IP, more drastic effects in TV.
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I like the idea of badges or fun effects like the reactor blowing up rather than unique items linked to looks or power. Badges don't usually have any effect in game except prestige. Items might make you less powerful or limited in look or power customization just because there is part of the content you're not interested in or don't enjoy.
CoH really didn't have the steriotypical "L33t Playaz", and I kind of liked that. I think it was part of what was special about the game. There were those who soloed AVs or GMs or TF, but that was different. Not the tired old grinding for bling and "gearz" they brought into Champions and DCUO.
Really, there was very little tired or old about good ole CoH even eight years later when it ended. Champions and DCUO back-stepped towards hackneyed grind-for-gear mechanics when other games were still copying some of CoH's innovations.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Here's something I just thought of:
You're doing the "Save the Reactor" trial and you fail it. You get a sort of "negative connotation" badge for this (probably still a badge technically but instead of calling it an accolade you'd call it a Mark of Shame or Disgrace or something maybe). For that you earn some XP debt and/or get a temporary nerf to your powers in some way (anything from mild damage debuff to slower movement, etc and it lasts a few minutes or 24 hours or something). This also triggers a zone event called "Fallout" where the city is getting inundated with glowing green smog and people are succumbing to it and turning into radioactivated mutants. You have to go to the NPC, get a "decontamination device" temp power and administer it to the affected people and mobs (radioacitve mutant Family goons, EGADS!). Once you've defeated all the radioactive mutants (either by decontaminating them or beating them down the old fashioned way) you get a different badge, called maybe "Damage Control" or something.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Decontaminator? ;)
So true!
Spurn all ye kindle.
I have long believed that there should be consequences for failing missions. It went something like this:
The Superteam breaks into the secret warehouse (go with me on this...) where Dr Evil is assembling his Oxygen Stealing machine. They fight their way through the hordes of mobs and even manage to keep them all from sounding the alarm. This means they get the drop on Dr Evil...
...but they get pasted anyway. The entire team is defeated. The result: Dr Evil gets away. No bonus xp at the end of the mission. There is a brief cinematic of the player being awakened by an EMT outside the warehouse. The team gains negative Prestige or Fame or Reputation or whatever you want to call it. Now there are a few different ways this could work out:
1) One teammate gets away from the fight and hides in the warehouse (gets to a spot already cleared). A few goons chase them for a minute but give up and go back. As long as that ONE person is still active the mission will not end and the team has not really been defeated. Now if the survivor can manage to rez the rest of the team they can try again.
2) Dr Evil doesn't just escape, he kidnaps the team and places them in a deathtrap (or has one in the warehouse already). The team makes up to a deathtrap minigame. If they can beat it they get another chance at Dr Evil who of course hung around to gloat. Note that this scenario would be the exception rather than the rule. Not all enemies would do this and those that would are clearly designated.
3) A second mission, identical to the first but with a different map, immediately spawns. Sort of like an instant Story Arc. If you defeat Dr Evil this time then all is well. Some players (those who prefer the fight to the end bonus) might lose intentionally in order to do this continually so there would have to be a limit.
I don't subscribe to the 'Teamwipe! Let's meet at the door and try again!' endlessly model. There should be consequences to losing but also rewards for doing things well.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Well, a death penalty would be a consequence of faceplanting repeatedly at the very least.
Beyond that though, I don't think every mission should have a fail scenario, but the ones that do I want it to have real consequences. Most of the missions that were failable in CoH really didn't mean much, all you missed out on was some bonus XP and inf at the end. Then there was the Lady Grey TF where people would purposely fail 2 of the missions to complete it faster.
I wouldn't mind if a failure took you along another path in the story, but sometimes I would like it to end the arc right then and there, especially in a situation like the LGTF. Failure can be an option, but it shouldn't be a short cut.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
That and getting the annoying NPC followers to shut up....
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Stronger death penalties encourage better teaming and more diverse builds.
Beyond that failing a mission can/should trigger a change in mission progression. This makes death not "the end" it's just another (no more rewarding) path. If you fail to stop the deathray in time to save "HeroBoy" then you now need to also get to a medkit located elsewhere in the instance (or have a boss healer on your team). IF for some reason you decide to leave the mission and NOT heal HeroBoy you get less XP (and weaker drops) than if you'd successfully saved/healed him.
Failure is not the same as death, but neither should be encouranged, just alternatives
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Actually, I loved her lines. Her problem was she wouldn't start moving till she was done her speech. Apparently her one weakness was an inability to walk and talk.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Gentlemen, I have been designing a series of devices to remove the oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere and contain it until released little by little by my order. These "Oxygen Stealers" will be based in the state of Pennsylvania in a facility below a convention center in Pittsburgh. Due to this, the devices have been codenamed... The Pittsburgh Stealers.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
And we will hold the world Ransom unless they pay us............1 Meelion dollars!
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Okay, another specific idea:
You do a TF to defeat the evil mastermind who is assembling a robot army to TAKE OVER THE CITY!. If you succeed, you get a "summon robot" temp power, if you fail, you trigger a "robot army invasion" zone event. Badge for succeeding gives you XP/infl bonus plus the temp power, badge for failing gives you debt but then you can get badges for invading robot defeats that give you something good.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
One thing that I can see is people wanting to Fail. Not so much for quicker runs but to trigger Zone events.
If we have a Fail/Zone event system there has to be a limit for how many can be triggered in a given time. Not just the event like the Robot attack, but if that happens then X amount of time needs to pass before another event gets triggers like that Robot Army Invasion. Mainly to prevent Grifters from spamming Zone events.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Agreed. Cooldown timers, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Now for the flip side. How would things work if your a Villain? Of course failure there would be the Heroes stopping you. Don't want to be unfair and cause the Devs to hate Redside to return.
So what can be done if your a villain?
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Failing should be a 'possibility', not an 'option'.
Failing for villains means the hero bonks them on the head and takes them to jail.
Failing for heroes generally means the villain kills them, or possibly the villain puts them in a nearly unbeatable situation that will likely kill them, then leaves to give the hero a chance at surviving.
Failure should mean having to log-off for at least 'overnight', so your hero's super-healing ability can kick-in, or the super-hero hospital can work its magic on you. This 'instant-regeneration' that is popular these days is just ... meh. Now, semi-failing might trigger some sort of fall-back, a sort of 'beam-me-up-Scotty' type of thing. But, the mega-fail should definitely require some serious consequences, up to maybe the loss of an entire level of progress/experience value. This could still come with a significant 'badge' of de-merit. You could potentially fail yourself back to level 1, or 0... whichever. Without this type of de-incentive to failure, you just have a bunch of chaotic types doing whatever gets the most jollies.
This is not really a bad thing, just not on the level of the ideal of the project, a greater super-hero (/villain) mmo experience.
So, certainly include the POSSIBILITY of failure, but not promote or offer it as an OPTION. It should be arrived upon naturally.
And the consequences of failure should increase depending on the severity of the failure. If you find yourself in the middle of a nuclear blast, there shouldn't be a 're-rez' instant do-over. Though, if you somehow 'escape' the blast, then you could at least face some in-game consequences, like being demoted a level, rather than having to go through a reincarnation ritual or something that would take 'overnight' or so, and also demote you a level, or even two.
Probably, some other consequence than level demotion would be required because of the hate that would generate. :)
\`|'/
Many MMOs nowadays downplay failure to the point of meaninglessness. Sometimes they give grant everyone the ability to resurrect, or the ability to resurrect themselves. Sometimes they allow you to respawn just moments away from the fight. Sometimes they even glorify failure with an achievement! It's absurd, there should to be consequences to failure, not rewards. There should be a sense to avoid failure.
I commend the idea of missions possibly changing a story's outcome.
Death itself has been made too easy in games nowadays, even in City of Heroes. Only debt loss, sometimes the travel-time made it nasty. The easy accessibility of self-resurrection influences and abilities downplayed the impact of dyeing itself. I would like to see resurrection abilities kept to a minimum, bound to only support-type classes. Especially self-resurrections.
As for releasing, I would like to see you required to pay hospital bills, and even travel fees that very depending on how far you were from the hospital. Perhaps even consider this: If a player does not pay their bills, then consequences could be they are not allowed to purchase other items until they pay their dues. (What if you were required to purchase a Train, Helicopter or Ship ticket to travel to a certain other zone?) Another consequence could be possibly altering alignment if they neglect to do so after a certain point.
Edit: Or offer your services to pay your debts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs Not to be another fanboy :p
But the above is punishing not difficult.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
What is death without consequences in an MMO? Call me a sadist but I like the concept of punishment. I think it heightens a sense to avoid death as much as possible. The concept of releasing is to encourage players to team up with support members more often to minimize the chances of death.
The "jump back into the battle instantly" concept is not as applicable towards MMOs when you have other players around. Let's say you are fighting an enemy group of players, and successfully slay a vital member of their group. Being able to jump back into battle immediately can instantly change a fight's outcomes if you can jump back into "the same previous battle" when a victor has not yet been claimed. I'm looking out for the PvP aspect of the game as well, not just PvE.
In PvE, some encounters can become much to easy if you can constantly resurrect or jump into a battle with no downtime in between. Especially when a side has not yet claimed victory.
Punishments usually serve as a buffer to prevent you from engaging into a previous ongoing battle, sometimes as a money sink.
What I (and the video) suggest is a balance between de-incentivizing death and punishing headstrongness (that supers are known for).
In CoH, I found XP debt a bit light of a punishment, but in the ballpark.
The "mega-fail" should never prevent the player from playing, that's the last thing we want in this game...players not playing...not even a timer that effectively prevents any character from entering or playing the game. Some say consequences of death are more geared towards hardcore players, with some truth, but agreeing not to play for X hours/whatever isn't any part of my definition of a hardcore player.
And of course, not all of us are hardcore players, noobs pay money too.
To tip hats, I do agree that rezzing should require work, not just a continue countdown. It should be a special power that can be (effectively) used once a mission, maybe to a tactical advantage (Rise of the Phoenix anyone?), but once.
I argue that de-levelling or otherwise removing XP is punishment, not consequence. How am I supposed to come back with a new plan if I'm weaker? MMOs are known the The Grind, and to everyone it's at least at times gnawing, why make it that much longer?
This I don't mind at all, and would recommend. That's consequence, not punishment.
I figure, the last thing we need is people ragequitting the game overall,or even unsubbing for some time, customer loss is never, ever good.
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[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
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Avatar by MikeNovember
On another note, Idk why I didn't think of this earlier, but why not have the option of such hardcore mechanics and consequences?
The option should be chosen at creation though: what's the point of a hardcore mode when you can turn it off when s*** hits the fan?
PS: I guess i don't mind removing XP for death, it's in the same ballpark as XP debt, but de-levelling is quite hardcore and the average player would find it rage-inducing.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
I want to emphasize NOT overly punishing the "fight to the death" stubbornness that is part of comicbook hero lore. Even if you didn't read comic books, just watch how Superman in this latest movie threw himself at superior fighters and seemingly unstoppable technology and just won on power and stubbornness. Or how in the various Spider-Man movies Peter is often in impossible situations trying to save people AND fight a villain or fighting multiple villains at once and getting through it--barely--on nothing but grit and prodigious power.
This "put your head down and fight your way through impossible odds because it's right whether it's smart or not, and you're a Superhero, dammit, you have the power to pull it off" is part of the genre. Not always the Villain genre, but it's often there too in a different way a la --"I WILL rule the world NO MATTER WHAT the odds!"
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Playing hardcore is fun. I was in the Iron Eagles in CoH, and had a great deal of fun playing permadeath. I only play Diablo II and III on hardcore as well. However, I don't feel like there needs to be explicit support for hardcore play built in, as it is easy enough to choose to play that way on your own and adds additional development time and complexity that can be better spent on other things.
As for the death penalty, I thought CoH's was reasonable. It slowed down your leveling some and required some travel, but otherwise didn't affect you much. It gave incentive to not team wipe, since you lost time regrouping, but wasn't too harsh for the occasional death.
One thing I would like to see is to have actual rez powers, as opposed to things like wakies, not apply a death penalty for use. I feel like if your character can resurrect themselves as part of their powers, you shouldn't really be defeated unless the power is used and you're taken down again before it recharges. I feel like that might have helped powers like Rise of the Pheonix be a bit more popular and useful.
I see punishment for getting defeated in the game as a necessary amount of punishment for a few reasons:
1. Failure should bring some kind of punishment so that people will avoid it, maybe not avoid it at all costs, but avoid it under normal circumstances. If you're saying to yourself "I should just die and take Hospital Teleport to get the heck out of this zone faster." then the punishment for getting defeated and the other reasons for you wanting to die need to be looked at. In the case of the Hollows/Perez Park in the early days of CoH, those issues were more about the pain of getting around in those areas, but the cost of intentionally getting killed factors into the decision there and it shouldn't be a no-brainer. Similarly, I used to get suicidal in CoH when I noticed that I was outleveling my SO enhancements. This was before they made the numbers public, at a time when everyone was obsessed with keeping their numbers in the green at all times.
2. Punishment for getting defeated is not per se going to make the game "punishing" in and of itself, because you know to avoid death. Things that can kill you that you never see coming would be the thing you need to avoid there. You need to remove the "I just die here and that solves my problems" idea and make sure it's not an easy strategy people can use to circumvent doing content the hard way.
3. Making people respawn immediately upon their death is unrealistic, and the Hospital TP was only a little more realistic than that. For the sake of immersion, there needs to be something bad or at least inconvenient about getting defeated. If there isn't, it just doesn't feel like a defeat, and a defeat should feel like a defeat. Even if you intentionally sacrifice yourself in order to allow the team to win the TF or to save the innocent victim, that too should feel like a sacrifice, not just an automatic "I roll over and die for this AV then respawn like nothing happened, victim is saved, win-win for us, Miller time." Would you have been willing to die on purpose if ther were an influence cost of doing so? What if you were liable to lose a random enhancement in one of your powers? What if it meant your character just get's deleted immediately? These are all different levels of punishment and I don't think we're talking about not have anything, I think the discussion should be about how harsh the punishment needs to be to make death something we all need to try to avoid without causing reasonable people to demand their money back.
4. More negative impact from PVE defeats can be used by devs to make more gear, temp powers, bonuses, etc that can offset that and thus give you more dimensions of gear goodness and powers. How much we want to explore these sorts of things I don't know, but it opens the possibility. In a world where the cost of getting defeated is very low, everyone took Vengeance and Mutate (both powers that had to be targeted on a recently dead ally). In other regimes, those powers would be less attractive. Its all about cost-benefit analysis. SO for example, in a game where you lose a random enhancement when you die, there might be an Enhancement that automatically sacrifices itself (as a proc or set bonus or something) so as to remove any chance of losing anything else. Or maybe you have a set bonus from a set that says that only your Primary Set powers can be lost, or that your primary set powers are safe, etc. The point is there's a lot of design space opened up here which is valuable "game rules real estate" for devs.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Nope, they encourage teams to not take you on unless you have the cookie cutter build they want and 1337 snobbery.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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You will encounter such playstyles regardless.
I don't see a justification for game-applied death penalties or failure penalties more severe than CoH's. If someone wants to apply an extra penalty to their character for a failure (roleplayed overnight "healing time" after a death, or turning off XP gain for the remainder of the mission arc), then fine, but don't force it on everyone.
A delay (travel time to map and/or within the map, a "breakout of map prison" on certain mission) and a small XP debt or currency loss is a sufficient "death penalty" for an MMO meant to allow casual play. Built-in optional hardcore modes are reasonable, as long as casual teams can refill their ranks mid-mission/TF to compensate for a hardcode player who does a roleplayed overnight healing or gets perma-killed during the mission.
Turning back to the original topic, mission failures that trigger alternate mission arc branches, zone events, or a mid-mission change to the current objective would all be very interesting in my opinion. I wouldn't "reward" for such failures by giving badges, however, unless those badges can be very easily obtained solo and thus under-the-radar to the average player... I'd rather not see zone chat of "LF 2 more for task force fail badge grinding". I'd prefer to limit it to badges from fighting against events triggered by a different alignment's mission success, similar to the Rikti invasions triggered by the LGTF, and these badges should also be obtainable from a system-triggered event, in case players of the opposing alignment seldom trigger it.
Well, while this is technically true--there will always be some of this--my experience has been that I encountered this playstyle much, much less in CoH than in any other game I've played.
So my personal experience does bear out Minotaur's statement.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I think you told me you played Neverwinter. What were your thoughts of the death penalty there?
In my experience the stronger death penalty really encouraged cooperation.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I play NW but as a soloist/crafter, so haven't experienced it in teams, although I do see a lot of "Want this class with this gear score" (where the GS is 1.5x what you need) which is something you didn't get in CoH.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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Casual players are only a fraction of the population. If you cater everything to them, then you will wind up with content very similar to other MMO's nowadays - too easy.
Death should have meaning, death should be avoided. We're not asking for something as hardcore as "corpse looting", or "losing levels". I'm looking for something that prevents you from entering a previous ongoing battle if you were not resurrected, something that encourages more teamwork. Ever been in a situation where you hit a monster, die, release, repeat until you chipped it's life away? That in a PvP scenario is even worse.
So, this would apply just to group content, then, and not regular missions (which should be playable either by teams or solo characters, depending on what the player feels like doing at the time)?
Spurn all ye kindle.
I have to say the first time I encountered lockout in Champions and especially DCUO after coming from CoH I couldn't believe it.
Seriously--time out? Like a bad kindergartner?
No thanks.
Now, on the other hand, with how common healer rezes and self-rezes were in CoH, lockout actually wouldn't have been nearly as bad in CoH, but it was no fun in DCUO.
I'm not saying consequences for failure or difficult content are bad, I'm just saying that particular one is a fun-killer.
Sitting around with your thumb up your keister is not what I pay for in a game. It's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of queuing for things either.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Someone can show me some numbers if I'm wrong, but "casual" players are, nearly by definition, the majority. This can all depend on the definitions and such of "casual" and "hardcore", but the hardcore are, nearly by definition, the minority of players.
Catering strictly or largely to hardcore players is not good business, it shuts out many new players and leaves us with a decreasing customer base with self-explanatory consequences. I don't want to be 100% business about it, but we all want this game to survive long-term. Given the nature of these forums, the casual players have little say; most of us here played CoH to likely a medium to high degree as most of us have an obvious emotional attachment to the game. Even then, most of us are unlikely to be "hardcore" and even fewer to be "RP-hardcore".
I figure you can never go wrong with options, especially in a game so focused on character creation and customization. I'm of the camp that says if any serious death consequences (e.g. lockout, de-levelling, demerits, alignment changes (this one's not too bad)) should be part of a "hardcore mode", and as Scott says, TF teams should be refillable, or at least maintain half-strength.
I completely agree. Snobbery causes the same consequences as overcatering to hardcore players, and will decrease profitability of the game and possibly lead to a "lights out" scenario....
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Avatar by MikeNovember
And where is the fun if a victor can never be claimed?
"Ah, we're finally winning the battle!"
"Damnt, we killed this guy at least four times and returned this fight."
"We have yet to regenerate."
"We have yet to wipe their entire group before a member returned back into battle."
In Dark Age of Camelot PvP (Mind, known to be one of the greatest Open-World PvP MMOs ever!) when you released: You are sent back to your bindpoint, usually at least three zones away. Then there was an illness (3 minutes), which reduced the effectiveness of all abilities and movement speed by 30%. Therefor you had these choices: Be patient and wait out the illness, cure it in some way, or ride back into battle with this illness weak and vulnerable. These were counter measures to help reduce the effectiveness of the above mentioned tactic "Hit, Die, Release, Return Instantly, Repeat". Resurrection abilities had a huge power-cost and, in most cases, also gave this illness, another reason to avoid death.
Edit: "fraction" probably was not the best term I could have used. I was implying there are more players than just the casual group.
Well, it's obvious I'm on the casual and care bear side compared to some--and I want to say that I am well aware that my opinion is only one voice in many and not "the right one".
BUT, I think Des hit the nail on the head, and it's becoming a mantra on these forums--CHOICE.
Even as a casual carebear, I have absolutely NO problem with an optional challenge mode that has lockout.
Actually, I think I might I like it!
Hell, I might even join in once in a while just for the challenge on a night I feel like gettin a little crazy. So I like the fact that it'd be there and some people would be running it.
And they could sing to the high heavens that they are the only ones playing the game right and everyone else is weak, and I wouldn't begrudge it a bit. I didn't solo AV's, but I respected those who did--it was just more than I wanted to get into.
AND, give em more rewards, they deserve it. Maybe NOT unique things that give them advantages or looks that you can't get otherwise--well, I guess if you could buy it off of them, maybe even that's ok--but definitely MORE. They took the hard road, I won't begrudge their greater returns.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
To me, one of the defining characteristics of CoH is that combat was pretty easy. It made for a relaxed community where people teamed freely and very few felt the need to pick teams with only certain builds/gear, or criticize other's play.
On the other hand some of the most fun I had in game was playing with a gentlemen who often made "master of" badge attempts, i.e. run a whole TF/SF without dying. After the merger a whole lot of peeps wanted the MOLRSF badge, and he organized lots of runs.
He had a dominator built specifically for the last battle, he'd get a couple of core guys to cover needed powersets, after that he'd recruit just about anyone to fill the team. My Bots/Traps toon was a good fit, lots of mitigation, defence, and -regen for the AVs, so I ran the MO's a lot..
It was fun, it was challenging, we succeeded more then we lost but there were never any hard feelings for failure.
Not sure exactly where that fits into the discussion but anyways.
Redside, when running mayhem mishes, if you die you respawn inside the jail and need to fight your way back out to rejoin the team, or the team needs to stop what they're doing and fight their way in to save you. Trivial at high levels, at low levels it could be a real challenge depending on your build.
Mayhem mishes were oerfect in every way, I hope something like that eventually makes it into the game.
I love both of your points! The point in your first post being it is fun and easy to make the game hard, it doesn't have to be ONLY hard.
Two, the whole lockout thing, now if I had to FIGHT my way back so I had something to do rather than sit in time out like a bad little boy--even if the fight back was nigh impossible--it'd be fun. And if I actually made it back I'd feel awesome.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I must say that I do like the idea of having an alternate ending to a mission if it's failed, other than just mission ends "You FAIL!". I fully endorse that aspect being explored. If we fail a mission than something should happen and we should have to face some kind of consequences for it failing. I do not, however, endorse some form of penalty on our characters for death. Or at least nothing that is extreme. I too do not like sitting around picking my character's nose while I wait for some 5 minute penalty to expire before I can continue playing. Debt was a fine penalty. It sucked to die because now I have to repay X amount of debt before I can start advancing my character forward again. Sure there were some people who would blink off debt and wore their debt badges with pride, but some people hated earning debt and didn't like slowing down their character's advancement. If we do something, I'd like for it to be something similar to CoH did with Debt. Maybe we don't earn money or experience as quickly, but no horrendous penalty just because some asshat decided to pull too many mobs and get us all killed just for the fun of it.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
What areas are you looking out for? PvE, Arena PvP, Open-World PvP?
If one were to choose to play the Open-World PvP map version, how would one [u]ever[/u] be able to complete an objective if death essentially has no setbacks?
What if you were a Villain, and your objective was to rob a bank. How on earth would you be able to handle not only the waves of NPC's and monsters in your path, but an endless wave of Heros who endure no setbacks?
Essentially you guys are saying, you should be allowed to respawn right next to your opponent over and over and over and over and over. Fights would always be stalemates because progress can't even be made much further than an inch until the opposing force you already demolished seconds ago returns. Unless people finally logout due to boredom.
Why even have death? We should all be immortal.
The thing about the jail is - it's the same as a lockout. The only difference is, you're distracted from the wait. It's the kind of thing I have been advocating for - a buffer to prevent people from exploiting the scenario I keep mentioning.
One night the Rikti raid was going poorly so I switched over to a Dark Miasma toon, by the time I got back the the ship the corpses were knee deep, I TP'd into the middle and laid down a Howling Twilight, rezzed probably 20 toons :P
Technically in CoH nobody ever died. They were either "Arrested" or knocked unconscious. While granted you couldn't revive yourself from being unconscious you could have the Hospital teleport you to be fixed up, then you'd have to make your way back to the mission. We are supposed to be playing Super Heroes. I don't recall seeing any negative penalties applied to any Super Heroes in the comics if they were knocked unconscious. Plus with Buffers who can Rez, Clear Mind, etc. those penalties would be instantly negated anyways. So what's the point of even having them?
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Yeah, but it's fun. That's the difference.
If the "buffer" has me fighting and stomping ass to get back and help, I'm all for it. Even if it's near impossible.
I mean, am I missing something? Fun is the whole point, right? The "penalty" or "consequence" can be significant--it could be a new challenge to overcome or an exciting setback--but should it really be that you have to stop having fun?
And time out is exactly not fun--that's why the put kids in it when they're bad.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
City of Heros had designated maps for PvP. From what I have read, all zones will have a PvP option.
Don't recall seeing negative penalties after being knocked unconscious? "Being sent to the hospital, the hero rises constantly told "Your wounds have not fully healed yet!" "Being held captive." "Losing an important piece of yourself." "Unable to use your abilities." are quite common consequences seen in comics.
As for your Buffer point, that's the point of having a buffer. If death is made easy, what is the point of having a Support-type class? In my short experience playing Champion's Online, I had players rage-disband on me because I bothered to use a Heal ability on them when they could instead die and respawn without any setbacks. Rather they wanted me to apply more DPS to make the mission faster.
I haven't seen any comment requesting or even remotely implying this as a desired PvP mechanic...if you're not referring to PvP, please correct me.
All of the "no mandatory hardcore mode" commenters that I've seen have been focusing on PvE death penalties and PvE mission failures, where CoH's mild XP debt and travel time from a respawn point was enough to give the player/team a chance to learn from a mistake and discourage use of the hospital as a mid-battle health refill. Mid-battle rezzes were also limited by recharge timers, consumable carrying capacity, awaken stun and retoggling...unlike the situation you described in CO of being told to DPS instead of heal, CoH players seemed to value battle rezzes/heals.
I see many good reasons to prevent the scenario you described, but only in PvP. What form the penalty takes would almost certainly depend on the PvP content...open-world PvP may need a different solution than in-mission or arena PvP, while "indirect PvP" where players compete through NPC minions would require yet another solution. Each type of PvP needs to be tuned to allow for "comebacks" and surges of effort, but sooner or later cascade toward the side with superior skill. I imagine there may even be a few PvP modes where a simple brawl with quick respawning is desireable/fun, so a "no death penalty" option should probably be available during arena match configuration.
Yeah, ok, I agree with all of that, all I'm saying is can't we make sure that the penalty enhances the fun.
Like a side quest once defeated--they drag you away to wherever and you have to fight your way back--were you may miss the whole finale of the main mission, but IF you play well enough you just might make it, and no matter how well you play it won't be any time soon.
That way you definitely can't get back any time soon and probably won't make the final boss, but you can fight like hell to try and you have a chance. And If you miss it, you don't get the rewards.
And that is just an example, it could be something else fun to do. Like some kind of puzzle or meta-game.
I mean, sure, it's easier for the devs just to make a miraculous wall appear to block you, but it sucks.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Bleh, we keep jumping between PvE and PvP. As you all are probably well aware, I'm keeping a watchful eye out for the PvP part of the game. I still enjoy the PvE aspect, just wish it were more of a challenge.
I'll agree with Scott here.
I suppose we can all agree that PvP needs careful, more difficult, setback planning depending on it's context. Whether that be in Open-World, Arena, or a Mission/Event.
Well if you are talking about PvP, then you can have that! I won't participate in PvP. Ever. I've had my fill of it and I don't like it. So for PvP, whatever floats your boat go for it man.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I'm a bit of static's side, PvP was never enjoyable for me. But that it...it's me, not others. That's why I'm all about choice.
That being said, I do think the choice should be made at creation, or only changeable once or twice. Endlessly toggling such a hardcore mode is pointless.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
I'm not a PVPer. That said, I believe that a good PVE experience and a good PVP experience are in so many ways mutually exclusive, or at least present VERY different needs and priorities in terms of rules, powers, enhancements, penalties for getting defeated, knockback, mez, damage resistence, etc that you're basically writing two different games. CoH had different builds you were able to have for your toon. You could go to a level-up contact or wherever and flip a switch to toggle from one build to another. I think something like this should exist for PVP. What I would like is a system where you can PVE your toon and just play the game etc, but when you toggle to PVP mode, you're doing it before engaging in PVP content and for the reason of participating in PVP content. Then if you want to do PVE content, you would need (and most probably want) to toggle back to PVE mode. In PVP mode all the powers and rules and enhancements bonuses etc are different because they need to be tweaked for PVP to make it balanced, etc. Those tweaks would mnot be optimal for PVE and in some cases might wreak havoc on PVE toons by being too good, so they probably have to be kept separate. I know this makes for a somewhat schizophrenic game, but I think it's the best way to implement PVP.
Having gotten that off my chest, I have to say that I don't see where that would affect what happens when you fail a mission. Getting defeated in combat by PVE or PVP can/should have different consequences I would expect. So that can be done differently for one than for the other.
I still contend that being defeated (at least in PVE, PVP I don't want to speculate about because I most likely I won't be doing it ever) should cause you to lose something you don't want to lose, and that rezzing should not be automatic.
You should have to get rezzed by a support toon or have a self-rez power that you had to fit into your build, or a temp power you picked up somewhere (or bought in the store) etc. The hospital TP option is fine, but has the drawback of having to haul axe back from the hospital, which makes you want to avoid getting defeated if at all possible, so that's good. Maybe some maps have jails (difficulty setting) maybe some maps don't allow Hospital TP at all because they're meant to be extra-hard Trials or TFs and you just get kicked out of the Team permanently when you die and have to log off your toon. The TF team then has to try to finish the TF without you. If they can't, they fail the TF. This makes it more important for people to work together, play smart, be careful, and have a plan. Harder content is good to have sprinkled in the game in some places, but not everywhere.
I've suggested this before and I'm going to suggest it again, I like the idea of losing a random enhancement when you get defeated in PVE, just to make defeats really sting a little, also to create more of an influence sink and the need for more turnover in the market, and the added value is that devs can then make Enhancements, powers, set bonuses etc that will offset or change this in interesting ways. Maybe you can get a REALLY good Proc in a power, but it has the drawback that it automatically sacrifices itself to the "you lose an enhancement" gods when you die, so people are constantly trying to get more of them, making the expensive. Maybe a set has a bonus that causes your random death enhancement loss to be less random in a good way, or maybe you lose TWO of them but the set is REALLY good in combat. etc. The ability to add drawbacks and advantages in different amounts makes everything more fun and interesting.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I don't PERSONALLY like the losing a random enhancement idea, but as Des said--that's just me. And I still think Radiac's awesome :P. But if this were implemented, I wouldn't cry about it, it just wouldn't be my personal choice.
I consider EVERY defeat in a game as a real defeat, and not being defeated was a huge motivation for me in the game--though all Superheroes get defeated sometimes.
Whenever I was defeated and was on my way back in CoH, I always thought "that's one for you, mother$&*#", and after that point even if I got them it was a draw--1 for1--and if they beat me again they were really the better man, but that wasn't the point--I had to keep trying till I brought them in cause I was a hero.
Now, I did have a friend who simply "ignored" defeats out of the story in his head. A "That didn't happen" type thing. That always bugged me, but, his sub fee his fun in his head. In the story in his head his hero always won. Lame, but his choice.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
This is why I find difficulty sliders to be a critically important feature. At its base difficulty, CoH was exceptionally easy. It made it so that almost anyone could play and succeed. Some people like their games easy, some people just like smashing stuff without worry about dying, and some people are bad at games and find the easiest difficulty sufficiently challenging. Having the game be really easy helps keep those people around by not driving them away by repeatedly facing them with challenges they cannot accomplish.
At the flip side, running at +4/x8 was extremely hard. There were optimized builds and players who could do it, although in most of those cases it was still very challenging unless the player only chose enemies they were strong against. That difficulty range meant that people who would have gotten bored with the base difficulty of the game (and I was definitely one of them) could adjust their difficulty until it was an appropriate challenge for them, thus keeping the game interesting.
Making things easy for casuals doesn't mean you can't also make things difficult for other players. It is one of the features from CoH that I have not seen in other MMOs I have tried, and I sorely miss it. It is probably the main reason I ended up stopping SWTOR, as I just got incredibly bored of the combat being too easy most of the time.
I wouldn't mind this, except for say (assuming CoH mirror) the chance of losing a Purple. I think that anything above "uncommon" should be immune to this, or exclusive to a 'hardcore mode" option. Another twist could be that the enhancement is put on the market; this removes the supply-and-demand effect of your proposal, but something that's super rare will likely be more in the hands of a hardcore player, who is more likely to lose them in such a random loss scenario, thus leaving even fewer for the rest of us who are less hardcore but still want/need a strong toon.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
That's certainly a possibility. On the reverse side of that coin you could also have certain purples that are extreeeeeemely powerful BUT they have a HIGHER chance of getting dropped when you are defeated! Slot them at your own peril, because they're REALLY good, but REALLY hard to replace. Or you could sell it for, say, ONE BILLION DOLLARS?!? *Dr. Evil pinky to the corner of the mouth gesture*
This all sounds like more fun to me than just getting defeated and going "meh, whatev" and letting the team cast Vengeance on you for the 10th time today.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
WOW do I agree with you. And WOW do I miss killing time soloing 4/8 radios with my most pimped out main where I had to play smart and well to survive and I was swimming in a sea of deadly enemies.
It was challenging but felt EPIC at the same time. What a sweet spot CoH found. I have not found it since.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I miss the +4 x8 missions I used to run all the time with my Elec/Nin Stalker, Elec/TW Tanker, and my Time/DP Defender. That was fun and challenging. I too hope that they incorporate that idea into the game as well.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I actually liked the Rez / teleport to Jail feature in some of the Council Missions. In a number of missions i dreaded having to go to the Hospital and having to travel across the Whole Zone (IP anyone) trying to get back to the mission. I so loved those people that took Recall Friend.. HUGS n KISS to u! ;)
I found the in-mission jail to be a nice and challenging "secondary objective" to help rescue any player stuck there, whenever no one had a TP ally power, or the jail had an anti-TP field. Part of the team might continue toward the main objective, while I (and maybe one other bold person) split off and stormed the jail, and all of the x8 spawns in our way. Or toggle on SS / IO / stealth powers, and sneak past everything to help break down the jail door, and then smashing our way back to the team. I just found another reason to miss CoH...
Side note: this was one of the reasons why I can't understand the stance by some people that Recall Friend was a worthless power.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Wow, people said that? Sure, not so good for a solo character, but in my experience it was one of the most useful for team logistics.
Back to the original issue, I'm definitely against death penalties that decrease a character's powers or lock him out of the action, mainly because -- for me -- it doesn't feel right for the superhero genre.
*** WINTER SOLDIER SPOILER ***
Having just come from seeing the film again, I was struck by the highway fight scene where the Winter Soldier fires the explosive at Cap. He blocks it with his shield, but is nevertheless thrown by the blast off the bridge and into a bus, which then proceeds to have a major traffic collision. Cap is out for the count.
This is what a defeat meant to me in CoX: not death, but just being zeroed out. When Cap eventually revives (which to me was the equivalent of using a wakie) he hasn't lost any of his powers and he can jump right back in the action -- just in time to save his friends. The whole sequence seemed to have the golden combination of consequence and heroic opportunity, and it's just one example from this genre where the defeated hero comes back just as you had thought they were out of the picture. And this doesn't apply only to heroes; how many times do villains reappear when you thought the day was won? I maintain it's a staple of superhero stories, and one I'd hate to lose.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Brilliant! I was trying to put my finger on WHY the defeat mechanics in CoH were better for the Superhero genre than the typical non-Superhero MMORPG mechanics, and that nailed it.
CoH just wasn't WoW or GW2 with flight, it was tights and capes instead of armor and swords. Mutants and Metahumans instead of Wizards and Magic (though we can slip a little all of that other stuff in there too when we want, because our genre RULES!!!)
Well played, sir. Well played.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Yep, I've heard it both on the CoH forums and even somewhere in here. I would honestly love to hear an argument as to why it was a worthless power just because it is such a mind boggling stance.
Back on topic...
Personally I think the running back from the hospital was a hell of a penalty. It was much more of an active annoyance then the debt ever was (at least until you had a couple bubbles of debt). Speaking of debt, what I liked about it was it was a death penalty that never set you back. You did not loose experience, you did not loose money, you didn't loose something random from your inventory. You also were not weakened or given some kind of a ability penalty. Instead you just gained XP at a slower rate until you worked it off.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Yeah, for me anyway, XP debt and the hosp run felt like the right penalty for the kind of game that CoH was. They did a lot to mitigate XP debt as a penalty over time, and we could probably quibble about where that line should be drawn, but I think it worked better for the game than a debuff, actual XP loss, or enhancement loss, would have.
For a silver age-y supers MMO, I think you have be careful not to discourage daring play while trying to discourage stupid (or overly smart, in terms of minmaxing the penalty) play. I should say I am mainly thinking of this in the context of teaming, though. I would hope a spiritual successor to CoH would encourage a lot of casual teaming, during leveling and not just at max level, and that there would an effort to keep the game fun for casual folks. At the same time, I'd like to see more "difficulty slider" options (esp adding some for AI behaviors) for friends who want a challenge that is better suited to folks who will work together effectively. I used to enjoy both kinds of play (and mixes of the two, really), with different kinds of teammates.
Radiac had started off by talking about iTrial-type stuff rather than normal missions, of course, and for that I'd agree that having reward tied to effort makes sense. There is a chunk of the population that won't like the idea of limiting rewards to content that can only be handled by people who have a circle of players who are interested in content like that, but both camps are generally mollified if there are slower alternate avenues for achieving those rewards.
One of the turn-offs I had when designing missions in AE was that there was no way to branch a story like that. There was just one path through a story arc and missions were self-contained units that didn't impact the course of the arc itself. Worse, you couldn't vary things much within the mission itself (aside from some of the trigger options, which were not really story-related). I thought it was a cool addition, considering how late in the life of the game it was added, but I have hopes that CoT will be able to take it farther, especially given their design goal of having players and devs use the same mission design tools, when possible.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
Personal unofficial opinion.
This would be fine if we were designing a game in a vacuum, and a design decision that needed taking. We are not, this is a spiritual successor to a game where death had little meaning, and a large majority of the players were casual (and many were not typical members of the "MMOers" profile who played nothing else). If we are trying to appeal to the same core audience, the death penalty cannot be too severe. CoH also was not a difficult game until you got to some of the incarnate content, and I hope CoT goes that way too.
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Regarding Recall Friend, while not an argument I ever made (I never passed judgement on other's build choices), I believe it went something like this, but in less kind and generic language:
1. "Team TP temp/vet powers are sufficient for the occasional need to get everyone to a mission entrance, through a convoluted map, or to recover from partial or total teamwipe."
2. "Players should avoid certain situations, so as to not need rescuing from battle or return from the hospital. If they get into such a situation, see # 3 or # 1."
3. "Players should be self sufficient (stealth/travel powers/defenses/aggro-avoidance skills/map knowledge) so that they don't need someone else to TP them."
I personally didn't take Recall Friend on any of my alts, but every one was stocked with vet and temp powers to provide as much TP help as possible without taking up a power slot, and I never tried to rush someone or make them feel bad for falling a little behind when traveling. There were plenty of valid conceptual and build-optimization reasons to skip a travel power, after all.
Back to addressing the failure/defeat topic...
For me, just seeing my character topple over was enough of a penalty to make me want to avoid death, even if no other penalty had existed. If possible, I'd like to see a new defeat mechanic for players in PvE, where reaching 0 HP triggers an "about to lose consciousness" stage, lasting ~10 seconds. A "second wind" or recovery to 25% HP with no penalty is possible in this stage, but failing to recover means you were knocked out and now need an Awaken/ally Rez power/Hospital. There would of course be a limit on how many times one could recover on their own, perhaps on a 5 minute cooldown, and recovery would automatically occur if no direct enemy attacks interrupted you for 2 seconds (AoEs wouldn't count). That way, any teammates who distracted or defeated the enemies during this time would be assisting the player's recovery. You could also use inspirations during that 10 seconds to recover with more health/defense than the basic 25%, give you a better chance to escape or return to the fight. Seems very heroic. If not acceptable as a mechanic for everyone, perhaps a temp power or a pool power with this effect could be considered instead.
Failable/branching missions are completely acceptable in my book - just having the possibility of failure (such as that "prevent Fir Bolg from escaping" mission) was a nice change of pace from the typical, unfailable mission design.
[edited to add recovery from defeat idea]
I would be curious to see how many would like to see a new power in the Medicine power pool called Revival Teleporter.
It's like a makeshift mini hospital, that would allow a fallen ally to be teleported to and Rez'ed at, in the mission / location someone dropped it at.
Of course a number of limitations would be placed on how / where / uptime / instances of it / etc... could be cast, to make the strategic placement and use meld better into winning the day. ;) This might come in handy in some Massive Raids. :/
Like in DFB, where you rezzed back at the beginning of the Segment, rather than completely leaving the instance?
Actually, the 'Jails' in Council and Circle of Thorns missions sometimes acted like this. If your team came and thoroughly ransacked the area, then rezzing in the 'jail' was just a minor set-back.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I think the real point is, as Cinnder said above, it's NOT death. Just going down till you get your wind back. Cinder's examples above were an excellent explanation for why there really was no "death" mechanic in CoH because it wasn't a representation of death. In comics, Heroes often go down temporarily several times in a fight.
In games where you're basically a soldier or an ancient warrior, when you go down--whether by sword through the gut or bullet through the brain--it's over. Well, not really because its a game, but it's a representation in the game of death.
Now, how many times have Superman or Spider-Man died? Too many, yes, PIS is also present in comics, but they don't die when taken down in a fight or even when defeated. In this case, it's not realism as much as genre. I mean, seriously, Batman would have been shot and killed by now, and one lucky bullet would have caught Cap or Daredevil by now.
Think of it this way--it's more like a boxing match than a battlefield. Yes, you go down for the count but can get back on your feet and keep fighting. And yes you can be KO'd or TKO'd, but you live to fight another day. If it were a battlefield, well, one bullet or sword through the heart, well, game over forever.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Specific Example of that: Batman: Dark Knight Rises [SPOILER ALERT] (maybe someone hasn't seen It idk)
Batman gets his ass kicked and back broken by the (poorly done) Bane, then recovers and comes back to save the day through a stab wound. While Superman, Spiderman, and Cap have been killed. If the writers were aiming for realism, Cap'd've died in the 60s, same for Spidy.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
And those Villains! How many times do you beat them down and then they get away. And even if you manage to take them in the next thing you know they're out of Arkham or Ryker's island and back in your face :P.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Something I always thought would be interresting is a sort of "scaled" defeat penalty. I don't have a detailed plan for this, but say the length of your "time out"(knocked unconscious/whatever) is proportional to damage you take as a function of a percentage of your total health.
A simplistic illustrative example:
If I have a total normal Health of 100 and I'm sustaining damage from attacks at about 5 per attack, when I hit zero points I'm knocked out for 3 seconds. However, if I'm sustaining damage at 20 per attack, I'm out for 15 seconds. And if I i'm knocked out with a 50 point attack I'm down for a minimum of 30 seconds. These times apply to any attempt to rez or respawn. (But there may be a boost you can slot that reduces your time or changes the percentage)
Mainly I see this as just a way to encourage a little smarter play, and discourage jumping in over your head.
Whatever the mechanic we end up with, I like the idea of utter defeat being meaningful. Just not torturous. I would consider myself an enthusiastic but ultmiately casual player. If you force me to min/max or grind too much I'll lose interest. Just like I did with every other game I tried. As much as I loved CoH, it's got a lot more competition than it did back in the day. Even within the genre. (Clumsy and imperfect competition, to be sure. But lots of potential players may not recognize that) Personally I liked CoH's level of "punishment", and would be perfectly ok if it was adopted again.
I only just skimmed through some of the posts, and what I read I both agree and disagree with. The zone events when a trial is failed would be great, yes, but that would imply only one instance of the trial is allowed to run at s time. Can't have two groups running separately and one win, and the other fail hoping to have the after event. Good thought, but not plausable sadly. And the knockout time I like, but there would have to be a debuff attached to it, saying "You have recently been knocked out, one more time and you die.". Etc, otherwise you'd never die, thus making it nearly impossible to fail in the long run. Unless it's a timed issue.
Time to put the helmet back on.
http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/45055
Some tricks may keep the zone events idea viable (e.g. starting another instance of the zone so that the second event can begin there, or delaying the start of the new event until the current one ends), but you're right, any design would break rather quickly if it can't handle the case of simultaneous trials.
The easiest way around the "multiple fail triggers" problem is to simply lock out the spawning of any new "trials failed, start invasion" events if one is already still in progress or within a certain time period after the last spawn. So for example, your failed TF might trigger a zone event. The very next TF that finished 3 minutes later would not spawn another one, since one is already still happening. Even later, say within a 30-60 min window, no new copy of that triggered event can happen because of the cool down period. These are examples, actual timers can vary as the devs see fit. Maybe shorter cool down timer for new content, longer for older content, etc. You could limit all such triggered events to one per day, or one of each type per day, and not within 30 min of eachother, or one per zone per day, with zones being defined for these purposes, etc.
I feel like there's a way to do this.
Some further ideas:
1. Stop the BBEG from carrying out his plans to launch a nuclear missile at China and start WWIII. If you Succeed, great, if you fail, you have to attack the giant flying missile that spawns in the air over the city and destroy it before it exits the map.
2. Defeat the BBEG before he can mobilize his army of robots/zombies/henchmen/etc. Failing the TF startes some sort of invasion zone event. Zombies pop up out of the ground, or robots start emerging from doors all over the city, or CHUDs emerge from the sewers, or aliens teleport in or emerge from dimensional portals or rifts that appear, etc. One note on this, the Nemesis Army that used to do this in CoH didn't have Mole Machines. They should have had Mole Machines, in my opinion. If you're going to give the evil organization a cool vehicle or weapon, they shoudl have it in thew invasion scenario.
3. Destroy the giant robot before the BBEG unleashes it on the city (there were 2 of these in CoH, The Kronos Titan in the one Malta mission arc, and Babbage in the Synapse TF).
4. Stop the BBEG from infecting the people of the city with some kind of mutagen/virus/plague thing that turns them into mutants/raving lunatics/etc. Actual Titan City townsfolk turn into badguys and you have to use the temp power to cure them, or else defeat them to stop the spread of the disease/whatever it is.
5. Stop the evil cult before it summons the giant evil demon (Adamastor, Jack-In-Irons, Eochai, etc)
These are tropes that CoH actually had in large supply and could definitely be done I Think in CoT, maybe not immediately, but eventually.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
hmm.. i would really like to see the last mish be part of a Heli Carier. Since you already succeeded in destroying the the Rockets guiding mechanism in one of the previous missions, now they want to drop it from over very high up and you have to traverse majority of the Heli-Carrier to stop it. Etc...
It would have to be a timed Mission, though. :( Plus, the AV isnt too difficult, but you dont have the luxury to take it slow. :/
And i better see some clouds when I'm on the flight Deck! >:(
..or when looking out the window in a few of the outer corridors.
Glass floors are OK too in the Dining Hall ;D
of course, if the glass floor shatters (not all of the floor is glass, some metal grates exist), as it will, you are Slowed and when you try and jump, your jump is reduced, just like if you were on the Flight Deck. :/
Sorry, we're all out of Heli-Carriers. Can we interest you in a nice Zepplin?
Be Well!
Fireheart
We had three new ones, but...
Spurn all ye kindle.
Triggering zone events is a nice idea and all but, in practice, how would it work? If the team goes in, beats up a few enemies, and then disbands, does that count as a failure? Do they need to spend some minimum amount of time in the TF? Does everyone in a team have to be defeated? Is it enough if they're defeated by the first wave of minions? Do they have to be defeated by the first big bad? The third? The last?
Does failure mean those people are now locked out of that TF or can they jump right back in to succeed or potentially trigger another failure event?
The irony is that unless the team hits some benchmark level of success, triggering the failure event will be meaningless because people can do it constantly, in the vein of, "Dr. Doom, I challenge you to combat! No, sorry, my bad. I give up. Bye."
If there is a failure I feel that it should be limited to the team in question. I would also be leery of generating the perception that there is a reward for failure.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
The question of what EXACTLY causes the event to start is not an impossible problem to solve, just a specific question that needs a specific answer on a case by case basis. Some garden variety answer ideas:
You end the last mission without earning the "You Saved the day!" ending for whatever reason, like you didn't click all the glowwies, or the timer ran out, or the AV managed to enter the launch sequence before you defeated him, etc. And here again, some version of a timer, maybe not a mission timer that causes you to fail the mission, but something like the Lambda trial where you only had so long to get the grenades in the warehouse map, etc. Or maybe at the end there's a "click all 6 glowwies in the correct order/at the same time/before the timer runs out/etc" and if you screw it up in any way, you get the zone event instead of the "you win" ending.
Also, I don't see where intentionally "failing" to get the event trigger is really that bad.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I agree with Darth. First, it kind of limits one team at a time doing a TF, wouldn't it? Say three teams are doing it simultaneously. If two succeed and one fail, what happens?
Second, I don't want to be constantly dodging zombies or what-have-you in a zone because teams keep failing and quitting a TF.
If, however, the failure generated a sort of "phantom zone" instance that the team had to clear of baddies or save from the missile, etc. Like a particular park in the city, or the football stadium, or the heli-carrier mentioned, that could work.
Having it limited so that it could only fire once every X period of time at most would be the sensible option of doing it.
This would mean that several people doing the LGTF (all at the same time) wouldn't necessarily start off several Rikti raids when they all completed... just the original one (although quite possibly the original one could possibly *last* longer if the Rikti Raid was still running when someone else completed it.
So, if your team failed, but my team succeeded, we still have to deal with the zone event? What was the point? No, thank you.
If your team has run the TF and failed, (triggering an event) does that mean my team can run it and not worry about failing as long as we do it in the X time frame? Or, do we have to wait out the time frame before we can even try it again? Where does the line form and how long is it? Not for me, thanks.
Nope. My problem comes down to having the actions of a few affect the experience of the many. If I don't feel like running a TF, or fighting a Giant Monster, or battling a Raccoon Invasion, I should be able to experience the rest of the city my own way. I don't mind the (very) occasional zone event where I can band together with folks for ten minutes for some wicked XP. But if there is a constant rolling out of zone event after zone event because of the TF people queued up and failing... well, I think that would alter the landscape too much for my liking.
If, once in a while, the City is beset by an Enormous Threat then okay, let's band to gether to deal with it. For say, fifteen concentrated minutes of mayhem, then go back to playing our own stories. Like I said, limit the ramifications to the players who have caused them.
Now here's a compromise.... Okay, you take on the OmegaMind TF, which has a team limit of say, 5-8. (possible XP 10,000 + the OmegaWidget) You go in with only 5 and fail. (you only get 5000 xp and no Widget) Darn, now OmegaMind is using his OmegaMachine to turn everyone at the Big Game that's underway at the stadium into violent zombies. (This creates a closed instance at the stadium - possible XP 5000, IF you use only the original team of 5, and still no Widget)
However, NOW you have 3 minutes to put out a call in zone chat and recruit 15 more players (to make up a max 20) to come and help you. This particular scenario wouldn't be timed. It's over when you have "subdued" or "cured" all the zombies. So, technically, you can't fail this part unless you quit. If it were a timed event, I'd say that failure just means the humiliating cut scene of FEMA coming in to save your spandex-wearing butts. This way, there's no "spill" into the rest of the world.
So, ultimately, you get the same XP, it just takes longer. But by failing the original TF you don't get the OmegaWidget unless you try again. But noone else has had to pay for your hubris.
Zone event being triggered by players isn't new. The Lady Gray Task force triggers the Rikti invasion. Synapse Task Force triggered Babbage. It was unknown fully what players causes the Zombie Apocalypse.
So all those events had player triggers. I remember running Synapse and going to fight Babbage only to see another team that was also running Synapse had triggered him first. This happened more then once and one time there were two of the big guy running about.
So the only thing we are talking about is a new type of Triggering system. Is it punishment for failure heck no. I enjoyed bashing away at the Rikti at other times I stood there in a sheltered spot and watched. Or I just left the zone/affected area either by leaving the zone or entering a mission.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
The Zone event, whether triggered by success/fail of a TF or just the RNG need not encompass the entire zone Instead it could happen in a bubble in an area (or several) on the over world map. It can be clearly marked on the map so everyone not interested in fending off an invasion can go around it and the event does not interfere with any street sweeping going on.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
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